Today's New York Times reports on the difficulties furniture manufacturers face in "naming or describing furniture that is designed to defy categorization":
Names and slogans are now “the hardest part of my job,” said Edward M. Tashjian, the vice president for marketing at Century Furniture in Hickory, N.C., who oversees the naming of individual pieces and entire collections. “Literally, every time I do it I want to quit and find a new career.” Coming up with a name for one of the new collections “that’s descriptive and engaging — not to mention hasn’t already been used, isn’t completely banal and meets the approval of the rest of the management team — is a nearly impossible task,” he said. ...
Bernhardt Furniture Company, which in the past has focused on traditional furniture but has lately expanded its repertory, also took several months coming up with the name for a new collection that merges old and new, although its approach was somewhat more adventurous. “We were looking for lifestyle-type names that just kind of sounded young and fresh and updated,” said Heather Eidenmiller, Bernhardt’s director of brand development. “You’ve got to find a name that pulls them in but that would never turn them off,” she added: “A name that can be pronounced, and that doesn’t sound like influenza.” (For a brief moment in 2006, the company considered naming its neo-traditional Wilshire Blvd. line for the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, but “you could just hear people say ‘Pantages is contagious,’” Ms. Eidenmiller said.)
“Fairgrove” was among the early contenders for the new line, but was nixed because it lacked an edge and sounded “too traditional.” “Brentwood” was another possibility, but failed because “it’s a bit neighborhood-y sounding,” Ms. Eidenmiller said, and because of the association with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. “I was like, no, we’re not ready to go there yet,” she said.
Eventually, Bernhardt decided on “Arlington,” after various areas in and around Chicago, and what she called its good “phonetics and sound.” (Apparently no one in the group worried about the national cemetery.)
In what universe, I wonder, is "Fairgrove" deemed "too traditional" and "Arlington" just edgy enough? As brands they're virtually interchangeable: WASPy, old-money, consonant-laden, staid.
By contrast, contract-furniture makers, which outfit workplaces, are much bolder in their naming strategies than the home-furniture industry. Herman Miller, famous for its Aeron chair, also makes products with evocative names like Ambi and Caper and offers accessories in The Be Collection. Steelcase, a client of mine, has product lines called Topo, Detour, and Relevant. (I named a Steelcase chair Amia.)
Meanwhile, home furnishings are marketed with utterly undistinctive names like Regent, Grayson, and Kingston. By the way, "Arlington" isn't exclusive to Bernhardt: American Leather uses it, too.
Pictured: American Leather's "Breckenridge" sectional. And here is Century Furniture's "Breckenridge" sofa.
The curmudgeon within wishes for a world where brown sofas were named, "brown sofas," and where housing developments had names like, "a boring place to live," "you wished you live here," and, "mediocre estates."
There's a nearby park named, "Grasslawn park," that brings a smile to my face whenever I drive by for just this reason.
More seriously, where's the practical line between what Western companies believe they need a clever name for, and those they don't? We name sofa colors, but not sock colors; a white sock is a, well, white sock. Car colors are often spruced up, but bicycle colors often aren't. Is it the size of the object, I wonder?
Posted by: John | December 28, 2007 at 09:22 AM